The Morning Wrap: Pathankot Terrorists Did 'Mock Drills' In Pakistan Air Base; December 2015 Hottest In 114 Years

An Indian civilian rides past as an army soldier takes position outside the Indian air force base in Pathankot, India, Sunday, Jan. 3, 2016. Indian troops were still battling at least two gunmen Sunday evening at the air force base near the country's border with Pakistan, more than 36 hours after the compound came under attack, a top government official said. (AP Photo/Channi Anand)

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The Morning Wrap is HuffPost India's selection of interesting news and opinion from the day's newspapers. Subscribe here to receive it in your inbox each weekday morning.

Essential HuffPost

Kazi Masum Akhtar should be bigger news than he is. The headmaster of a madrasa was beaten up for training his students to sing the national anthem in Kolkata. He was “viciously assaulted by maulanas and their henchmen” who called the national anthem a “sacrilege” and a “Hindutva song”.

Mumbai just witnessed an cricket innings that is unlikely to be surpassed anytime soon. A 15-year-old Mumbai school boy scored 1,009 runs without getting out, becoming the first batsman in history to make 1,000 runs in any form of the game.

One dominant characteristic of social media is the herd mentality that it seems to encourage among its users. Yesterday, two photos of Rajiv Chowk metro station went viral, spurring top journalists to tweet about the "crowd" in the key interchange station, apparently a fallout of the off-even rule in Delhi. However, it turned out that the pictures were from last year's crowd around Diwali.

There is nothing glamorous about sanitation. Talking about faecal sludge can be something of a conversation stopper. This is where Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Swachh Bharat Mission has been a game changer. It's now time for round 2, that goes beyond building basic facilities and look holistically at the sanitation value chain.

Main News

Jihadi terrorists who attacked the Pathankot air base had conducted mock drills at a Pakistani air base, top intelligence sources have told The Times of India. This could indicate an "active collaboration of the Pak military and ISI in the fidayeen assault", according to the report.

The new "Jihadi John," who is seen executing a prisoner in the latest Islamic State video, could be a 32-year-old bouncy castle salesman Siddhartha Dhar from east London, who was out on bail for alleged terrorism offences.

The Indian government on Tuesday approved quotas for women in the paramilitary, following the recommendation of a parliamentary standing committee on home affairs.

Last month was the hottest December ever in the past 114 years, and the period from September to December last year was also the hottest compared to the same period every year since 1901, which is when the India Meteorological Department started collecting data.

California-based Northwestern Polytechnic University (NPU), which has recently been in the news after Air India refused to fly students headed to the "blacklisted" college, has now decided to file a defamation claim against the airline for spreading "false information" about the institution.

Off The Front Page

A week ago, this 'miracle baby' made news after she survived even as she was born in a train toilet and slipped through to the tracks. Now, the baby girl's mother has abandoned her, leaving behind a note claiming she cannot afford to raise her.

Even as Pakistani-origin singer Adnan Sami celebrated after being granted Indian citizenship, many other Pakistani Hindus are returning to their home country after being refused citizenship in India. Many of them have waited for several years in India in the hopes of being granted citizenship status.

Forty five Indians and Indian-origin people have made it to Forbes’ annual list of achievers under the age of 30 who are “changing the rules of the game or creating entirely new playbooks” across varied fields. The list includes the 22-year-old founder and CEO of OYO Rooms, Ritesh Agarwal, and Canadian comedian Lilly Singh aka Superwoman.

Opinion

India and Pakistan must break the pattern of camaraderie cameos interrupted by negative asides, writes Salman Khurshid: "Peace with Pakistan will depend on our understanding of what drives it, as indeed our ability to get it to understand our worldview. There are some fundamental truths that we both should have little problem in understanding: That we can’t choose our neighbours or, indeed, rewrite history."

Delay in settling net neutrality issues helps big incumbents, entrenches bad norms, writes Apar Gupta in Indian Express: "Delays increase regulatory uncertainty. The absence of clear norms only furthers the interests of incumbents with sizeable market power, which have the ability to take on risks in circumstances of ambiguity."

The Akhand Bharat controversy is a "self goal" by the RSS, writes Sudheendra Kulkarni: "Most RSS-BJP supporters themselves understand “Hindu” only in its religious connotation. Many of them reject the call for Akhand Bharat by saying, often in bigoted ways, that the coming together of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh would reduce the proportion of the Hindu population and increase that of Muslims."

Free Basics is a misdirected initiative by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, writes Vineet Nayar in Economic Times: "When we have a huge gap between the haves and the have-nots, regulation plays a crucial role in protecting the interests of the have-nots, preventing their exploitation."